Advanced Dungeons
|publisher=Strategic Simulations U.S. Gold Pony Canyon (NES) |designer= |composer= Brian Howarth Iku Mizutani (NES) Seiji Toda (MSX/NES) |released= January 1988 Nintendo/Famicom |genre=Action-adventure game |modes=Single-player |platforms=Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, C64, FM Towns, MS-DOS, MSX2, NEC PC-8801, 9801, NES, Master System, ZX Spectrum }} Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes of the Lance is a video game released in January 1988 for various home computer systems and consoles. The game is based on the first Dragonlance campaign module for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, Dragons of Despair, and the first Dragonlance novel Dragons of Autumn Twilight. Heroes of the Lance focuses on the journey of eight heroes through the ruined city of Xak Tsaroth, where they must face the ancient dragon Khisanth and retrieve the relic, the Disks of Mishakal. Gameplay Heroes of the Lance is a side-scrolling action game. The game uses actual Dungeons & Dragons statistics, with statistics for the characters exactly as they were in the rule books. Eight heroes from the Dragonlance novels series must be assembled for the quest, and only one is visible on the screen at a time; when one on-screen hero dies, the next in line appears. While Heroes of the Lance is a faithful representation of the books it is based on, it was a departure from the usual role-playing video game style of most Dungeons & Dragons games, with a gameplay interface which consists of using one character at a time in horizontally scrolling fighting. Each character has different types of attacks and spells making them more suited to fighting different enemies but they merely act as "lives" for the player as in more traditional fighting games, removing one of the main strategies of role-playing games from the game. Plot Characters The eight heroes that make up the party are: *Goldmoon, a princess who brandishes the Blue Crystal Staff, an artifact whose powers she seeks to fully understand. *Sturm Brightblade, a powerful and solemn knight. *Caramon Majere, A warrior who makes up for his lack of intelligence with pure strength and fighting prowess. *Raistlin Majere, Caramon's twin brother; a sly and brilliant, but frail, mage. *Tanis Half-Elven, the 'natural leader' of the heroes, and good with a bow. *Tasslehoff Burrfoot, a kender pickpocket. He fights with a sling weapon known as a . *Riverwind, Goldmoon's betrothed. He is a noble and wise warrior. *Flint Fireforge, a grizzled dwarven warrior. Development Heroes of the Lance was based on the Dragonlance novels by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. Heroes of the Lance was not part of the Gold Box series; the nickname for these other D&D titles were "Silver Box" games. The NES version was developed by Natsume. Reception Heroes of the Lance was very successful for SSI, with 88,808 copies sold for computers in North America. After reviewing a pre-production copy of the DOS version of Heroes of the Lance, the magazine G.M. praised its graphics and "excellent" audio and said that "it would undoubtedly go straight to the top of the computer games charts and stay there for several months. Its THAT good." Computer Gaming World gave the DOS version of the game a similarly positive review. Electronic Gaming Monthly columnist Seanbaby listed the NES version as the 2nd worst NES game, and as the 11th worst video game. (expanded from an article written for Electronic Gaming Monthly #150) Levi Buchanan, in a classic Dungeons & Dragons videogame retrospective for IGN, wrote that "If you don't plan well, you can lose a lot of heroes in a very short period of time. This offered a slight strategy angle, but D&D fans largely preferred the Pool of Radiance straight RPG approach." (Pool of Radiance sales were triple that of Heroes of the Lance. ) According to GameSpy, "While the game was actually a fairly decent side-scroller for its time, the frustrating level of difficulty, along with the fact that you couldn't save the game, meant that most gamers gave this game a miss." Legacy The storyline for this game continued in two subsequent video games, Dragons of Flame and Shadow Sorcerer. References Sources * * * alternate html version of the review. * * External links * * * * [http://www.c64sets.com/heroes_lance.html Images of Heroes of the Lance package, manual and screen] Category:1988 video games Category:Action-adventure games Category:Amiga games Category:Amstrad CPC games Category:Atari ST games Category:Commodore 64 games Category:DOS games Category:Dragonlance video games Category:FM Towns games Category:MSX2 games Category:NEC PC-8801 games Category:NEC PC-9801 games Category:Nintendo Entertainment System games Category:Master System games Category:Side-scrolling video games Category:Single-player video games Category:Strategic Simulations games Category:Tiertex Design Studios games Category:Video games developed in the United Kingdom Category:Video games featuring female antagonists Category:Video games featuring female protagonists Category:Video games scored by Iku Mizutani Category:ZX Spectrum games